Fucking hell.
I wasn’t normally so . . . cranky? (no, I was definitely cranky), unaware? (that was true, as a police officer, I had been trained to always have a baseline of my surroundings), off my mark (that was it).
Capable would be the word in the dictionary under my name.
Right along with normal, cute, and boring.
Which was what had brought me into hiding.
Out there . . . was Hollywood.
And I was me. I was a normal woman from a small town, who had a normal job and wasn’t used to schmoozing with celebrities.
Not that any of them had been mean or treated me like I didn’t belong. In fact, they’d all been really nice. And even though I’d been expecting a lot of industry talk, plenty of inside jokes or conversations where I had no clue what they were about, that hadn’t been my experience. All the pretty people Maggie hung out with were also all nice people.
And I was still me.
Not particularly nice.
Not particularly pretty—at least not when compared to Hollywood standards. When I looked in the mirror, however, I shrugged and thought not too bad. Hazel eyes that changed depending on what I wore, transforming from brown to gold to green, sometimes even to gray. Blond hair that was shoulder length, but that I most often wrestled back into a ponytail because I couldn’t stand the fly-aways in my face. A strong body, in a normal (an eight, sometimes even a ten or twelve, depending on the brand) size. I was fine. I didn’t hate myself, didn’t despise the image in the mirror.
It was just . . . when I stood next to the rest of them in all their gorgeousness . . .
Yeah, it was a bit of hell on the self-confidence.
Doubly so because I was more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts. Certainly more comfortable in them than in fancy cocktail dresses and high heels.
And pantyhose.
Or thigh-highs to prevent chafing, because unlike some of the women out there, my thighs touched. Go me.
“So, you going to tell me why you’re in the habit of pulling guns on innocent men?”
I yanked my brain back to reality, focused on the man in front of me.
“Um, last time I checked, peeping Toms were doing illegal shit.”
A brow lifted. “But am I really a peeping Tom if a woman starts stripping down in front of me?”
His tone was light, but I detected an undertone.
“Oh, my God.”
The other brow joined the first. “What?”
“Have women stripped down in front of you?”
He rested one broad shoulder against the tree trunk. “For a role or in real life?”
“That you have to make that clarification concerns me considerably,” I muttered, moving toward the hedge and scooping up my heels. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say I wasn’t the first woman to strip in front of you—both for a role and in real life.”
His laughter was like warm honey.
Literally.
I actually felt it coat my skin, skate over my body, dripping down until it made its way to where those thigh-highs had stopped, where my holster was now situated.
Aw hell.
“You’d be right,” he said, pushing up and crossing toward me. “Though, only one of those was welcome.”
“I can guess which one.”
His eyes, sparkling pools of gold danced as they met mine. “I’d bet you’d guess wrong.”
Yeah. Sure. Like any guy I knew wouldn’t welcome a woman stripping down in front of him. That would be a freaking dream for any man I’d ever known—and I’d known a lot, since my job was male-dominated.
But then Talbot proved that he wasn’t like any man I knew.
And maybe, I fell for him, just a little bit.
Like in the way a teenager fantasized about a celebrity, imagining how it would feel to meet them, to kiss and hold them, even knowing that the reality of that would never actually come true.
Although, in my reality, when he touched me, it wasn’t just in my head.
Chapter Three
Talbot
I half-expected the gun to make a reappearance when I knelt at her feet.
But instead her lips—lush enough to have a man (cough, me) consider all the different ways to sip at that mouth, to taste every millimeter—parted, a breath sliding out.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
I took the heels from her, held the first one out so she could step into it.
“What is this?” she asked again, those lips pressing flat, suspicion drifting into her pretty hazel eyes.
“I’m trying to help.”
Her gaze held mine, and a thread of derision crept in. “Is there a secret camera around? Someone who’s going to jump out and say, ‘Gotcha!’ and laugh at the small-town hick who’s playing Cinderella with the movie star?”
I kept my hands—and the shoes—where they were. “Nope.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nope? That’s it?”
“Yup.” I waved the heel. “You need to put these back on, don’t you?”
Her face scrunched up in a way that was totally adorable, and I felt my heart actually skip a beat. God, she was so fucking cute. Especially when she grumbled, “Maybe, but I don’t really want to.”
I chuckled. “Come on . . .” I paused.
“You just realized you don’t know Cinderella’s real name, didn’t you?”
Of course, I had just realized that. Because I was a dumbass who hadn’t asked. This woman knew me because she knew Maggie, knew I was her boss . . . but that right there was a clue, wasn’t it?
Normally, I’d have my assistant put together a guest list, arrange all the details.
But I’d handled this one myself—including sending all the invites and hand-addressing them, thank me very much. Which meant, I just needed to use my awesome short-term memory—who ever said actors didn’t have some handy real-world skills?—to deduce this woman’s name.
Not
